


Four Seasons (Le Quattro Stagioni)

by Mahto



Category: Violet Evergarden (Anime), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Violet Evergarden, Gen, Given The Witcher is set in the 1200's, M/M, Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:33:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22418557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mahto/pseuds/Mahto
Summary: Jaskier is a Doll, a writer of letters for those who cannot do so themselves who will go anywhere in order to fulfil his client's request. His latest comes from the last witcher.aka the Violet Evergarden/Semi-Modern/Steampunk crossover no one asked for.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35





	Four Seasons (Le Quattro Stagioni)

**Author's Note:**

> This idea wouldn't leave me alone.

Time, in the end, conquers all. Even witchers.

Even Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, last of his kind.

* * *

“A witcher? Seriously?”

“Not just any witcher, _the_ witcher! You know, _that one_.” Alicja’s excitement is contagious - her dark hair, half swept up in a ponytail, flies in wisps around a wicked, secretive smile.

Jaskier arches a brow. “And he requested me _specifically_?”

“Not _you_. He wants the best auto-memory doll in Oxenfurt.”

“So me, then?”

Alicja wrinkles her pert nose at him, four parts cute to six parts ‘I’m your boss, behave’. “Yes, darling,” she drawls out, making them both giggle. “I don’t only sell you out for those pretty looks.”

“But the profits, Alicja! Think of the profits I bring in, shouldn’t you be spoiling me more?”

“I am - aren’t you obsessed with the old world? Here’s a living, breathing relic for you to study.”

She’s not… _wrong_. It's not the old world, exactly... It's just witchers, really, though he's disguising it well if _Alijca_ hasn't picked up on his morbid interest yet. Jaskier, wisely, keeps his mouth shut, even if the thought of having to travel in the middle of Summer terrifies him. Instead, he picks up the request form and scans over it again, making sure he’s not missed anything crucial. It’s a good job, this; he does love it. Enough to want to keep it, at least, even if one day he still hopes to be under the heat of bright stage lights with an audience laid out before him. But they’re not called ‘starving’ artists for nothing.

“… You’ll have to tread carefully.” Alijca, and now they’re both serious. Wise, warm chocolate peers out at him through a curtain of full lashes. “He sounded— different, to our usual clientele, on the phone. Are you sure you can take this?”

Jaskier runs his thumb over the edge of the parchment; presses it in, softly, against the peak of a corner. “I’ll be okay,” he says. “I like challenges.”

“And the timeframe?”

He shrugs. “A year’s just a year - he’s paying well, isn’t he? Who knows, maybe I’ll find my inspiration there.”

There’s more to it - he has history, of course. Who doesn’t, in this job? People don’t volunteer to become the living mouthpieces of strangers’ emotions if they have other choices or bright pasts. That’s neither here nor there, though. They don’t talk about it, not if they can help it.

“Jaskier?” Alijca’s still peering up at him, and he gives her a jaunty little salute in reply, tucking the request into his vest.

“I’ll hop off and pack now, boss!”

She laughs, at last. Jaskier can feel his shoulders dropping, relaxing again at the sound. It’ll be good to get out of here, in a way. He’s always been restless, even as a child, and the change of scenery really might spark something for his screenplay, too.

“Ah, Jaskier? I think this one might appreciate a more personal touch. Is your handwriting up to scratch?”

Jaskier’s already halfway out the door, but that’s not going to stop him from blowing a kiss at her over his shoulder. “I’m the best, remember?

Her laughter follows him down the hall.

* * *

He’s dying.

Which is… All things die, in the end. If his long life has taught Geralt anything, it is that all things die. Missing, faded, wilting, tired - in the end the final step is the same, regardless of type, age, or species. Everything has an ending.

Geralt’s is coming on fast. It’s closer than he’s ever felt it before; he’s dying, certainly, for he has always been dying (for everything is dying, all the time), but he’s hurtling towards the last stop, now.

He’s grown poetic, in his old age.

It would have made Yennefer laugh, were she still around to witness this melancholy overtake his heart. She had always called him ‘broody’, her and Cir…

It doesn’t matter.

The world changed, when he wasn’t watching. Tides turned, magic faded. And outside his window, as he stands in wait with his meagre breakfast, are all the marks of the time he has suddenly, with no fanfare, lost.

He misses Roach.

Steam engines and clockwork - the ravings of an insane man, turned into reality. Wood rots, but cobblestones and copper lamps will outlive the elves in their secret dimensions, another layer of humanity’s folly on their cities’ foundations. Even out here, as far from civilisation as he can retreat, Geralt still catches faint whiffs of the stench of progress on the breeze. It overpowers the herb patch he’s taken to cultivating, and the wildflowers he thinks, distantly, Yennefer must have planted long before she left for a last stint in some wayward king’s courts.

Perhaps she had simply grown bored of him.

Everyone did, in the end - even destiny, who had plagued his every step for centuries only to drift off when he needed the change of pace. Hanging around long enough to take all that gave him any sort of meaning or purpose, then fucking off: the story of his life, perhaps, or at least a subtitle. Maybe that’s why he’d sent that stupid request off, drunk and slave to his whims.

Letters. What an invention; delivered not by pigeon, but by airships and other strange, overblown machines made of steam and the little magic left in this world. There’s no place for a monster in human skin in this brave new world outside his last home. There’s no place for Geralt of Rivia, the Butcher of Blaviken (not when Blaviken thrives now, a renaissance borne on the winds of master clockmakers), and if the world has finished making time for him, he will finish making time for it. So, letters, perhaps - someone else to write them, to say all the emotions he cannot have, not after all these long days and endless nights.

_Knock Knock._

Geralt takes another fortifying swig of his wine. Casts another glance around his house; keeps stock of every ghost that lingers in the corners, friends and foes alike who have left yet not dragged him with them. There’s nothing left for him, here, and nothing he wants to hide, either. If the fool banging on his door wants to come in to gawk at the White Wolf, well… More fool him.

More fool… Geralt?

Oh.

It doesn’t matter, does it? He’s only chasing closure, before it’s his time.

On the other side of the door are bright, bright cornflower blue eyes, and a smile that pierces through to his soul. Wild curls bounce when the man dips into a bow, crinkling his rich coffee-cream vest at the waist, sweeping the feather plum in his hat in a gentle arch to rest over his heart.

“Auto-memory doll service, travelling anywhere to meet your requests! My name is Jaskier - I’m looking for Geralt of Rivia?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates might be slow, but there's a definite outline. It'll be finished, I promise. To clarify, we're a good few hundred years into the future, and lots of people are missing or dead (because time is a big bitch).

**Author's Note:**

> Please watch Violet Evergarden (it's on Netflix!). It's emotional catharsis in 24 minutes, I cried at every episode.
> 
> Title from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons concerto (sorry for starting with Summer though).


End file.
